What is World Wetlands
Day?2
February each year is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of
the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian
city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. WWD was
celebrated for the first time in 1997 and made an encouraging beginning.
Subsequent World Wetlands Days have been organized around such suggested themes
as the importance of water to life and of wetlands to the supply of water and,
in 1999, on "People and Wetlands: the Vital Link". Each year,
government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at
all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of
wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in
particular. From 1997 to 2001, the Convention’s Web site has
posted reports from more than 60 countries of WWD activities of all sizes
and shapes, from lectures and seminars, nature walks, children’s art contests,
sampan races, and community clean-up days, to radio and television interviews
and letters to newspapers, to the launch of new wetland policies, new Ramsar
sites, and new programmes at the national level.

Wetlands: Water,
Life, and Culture

WWD
2001 on a beach in the Philippines

The suggested theme for World Wetlands
Day 2002 is "Wetlands: Water, Life, and Culture". Wetlands are a storehouse of cultural heritage
which takes many forms, from human-made physical structures and artefacts,
palaeontological records in sediments and peat, and traditional water and
land-use management practices, to places of religious and mythological
significance and the intangible ‘sense of place’ felt by many for these wild and
often mysterious sites and their wildlife. Throughout its history, the work of
the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands has emphasized the importance of people in
conservation efforts: their livelihoods, their welfare, their traditions and
beliefs, their leisure as well as their work – not only their economic and
social well-being, but their "cultural heritage" as well. Increasingly, the
Parties have observed that there is much common ground in the biodiversity and
heritage management of wetlands.

Standing Committee has chosen for the
8th COP (Valencia, Spain, 18-26 November 2002) the
theme "Wetlands: water, life, and culture", and that one of the COP’s five
Technical Sessions will be on "Cultural aspects of wetlands as a tool for their
conservation and sustainable use". In order to contribute to this process, the
suggested theme for the 6th World Wetlands Day, 2 February 2002, will
be the same as COP8’s: "Wetlands: water, life, and culture". Government
agencies, non-governmental organizations, site managers and citizens are invited
to explore cultural issues in their national and local contexts and seek to make
their publics more aware of the cultural as well as the natural values of their
wetlands.

Reporting on World
Wetlands Days of the past

Since 1997, the Ramsar Bureau
has welcomed news from everyone of their plans for World Wetlands Day activities
and reports of their activities afterward, and has endeavored to post them
all on the Ramsar Web site.
Government agencies and private citizens from all over the world have sent
us their news, and these reports make an excellent archive of ideas for future
celebrations.